Ok, so I recently did a ton of work on my S4 like new rear tie rods, hotchkis sways, rear wheel bearing and a few other things... Well, I didn't get it aligned right away cause I thought it was pretty close.. well, I guess not. lol! Corded one of my rear tires in about a week and a half. It was worn before, but there was tread left. Needless to say, I have an alignment setup for tomorrow to correct the rear of the car.

Because of the corded tire, I forced to buy something else. However, after spending all the money I just did on the rear suspension, I hardly have any funds left for a new set of tires. So I hit the CL ads and found a few sets for a decent price, but one that really peaked my interest was a set of Star Specs. They huge though and thats the reason of this thread. Is there a point at which it hurts more than it helps?

I'd be looking at a 265/40/r17...on a 7.5"-8" wide wheel. I know that's gonna bulge out considerably, but there's a guy with our club that runs some race rubber that's gotta be way too be for the wheels they are on, yet dominates every event. They'd only be about 3/8" taller than my current 225/45/r17's, its just the width that worries me. They are cheap though, only $225 and they have probably 50%-60% left for life. I understand that tires that are too wide for wheels can give a sloppy feel to them and less responsive, but does that outweight the positives of the larger contact patch? I've been doing tons of research on this today, but its grab bag of opinions. There's plenty of people that do it though....

don't compare your expected results with those of someone running slicks. Slicks have extremely stiff sidewalls, much stiffer than any street tire. That said, I run 10" wide specs on my 8.5" k1s and they feel great, not sloppy at all. I would be more concerned with the higher aspect ratio, which is going to cause more rolling in the side walls. How much more would only be a guess. That's a damn good price though. Make sure you physically measure the full section width though, my 225/50/16 specs were WAY wider than my 245/35/16 Toyos, so don't be surprised if those 265 wide specs are closer to 12" wide overall.

Yeah, After I finished typing that post, I thought about that post you made a while back about the width of the specs vs. the toyo's and figured these would be way wider than what I have going on now. I do understand the race tires are much stiffer, but this dude's got something like a 285 on stock 8" wheel. The tires have to protrude a good 1".

I did end up going with a set of 3 Falken Azenis rt615's for $75. Still have probably another two event on these things too.

Keep in mind that guys stuffing slicks on a stock wheel are doing it because they have to, they aren't allowed to run wider than stock. For those circumstances, fitting the widest slick is the fastest thing you can do. Street tires like just a bit of stretch to perform optimally.

When wheel width isn't an issue, too wide only really happens when you get to the point that you can't heat up the tire enough. For your Audi, I would guess it has enough weight to get heat into a set of 265's. Also keep in mind a wider tire will slow you down on the straights. Probably not an issue for your car when autoXing, but for a sock powered E30 road racing it can become noticable.

Yes, that's part of the problem I suffer with my current setup. The tires get very hot, very quick and it turns into a big 3300 plow monster...lol. Part of the problem is that we have no downtime for the tires to cool in between runs so they just get hotter and hotter. Also, I later went back and look at the class rules and it states that and AWD STU car can only run up a 245 profile anyway.

Ahh good call. Have you looked into a water sprayer for the tires? It is one more thing to take care of inbetween runs, but it does a good job of helping keep the tires cool if they are getting too hot.